Credit Rating

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

Moody's Investors Service raised the credit rating of Ford Motor Co. to an investment grade, giving its seal of approval to a corporate turnaround of the business that started with heavy borrowing at the end of 2006. The move Tuesday returns control of the automaker's famous "Blue Oval" logo back to Ford. The logo, with the Ford name written in distinctive script, was first seen on a Model A in 1928 and was pledged as collateral to obtain the loans. Moody's raised its assessment of the creditworthiness of Ford's automotive operations to Baa3, up from Ba2. Ford Motor Credit Co., the automaker's finance arm, now has a rating of Baa3, up from Ba1. The investment rating is an important measure of corporate health and will reduce the automaker's borrowing expenses.

Los Angeles police will not pursue through the courts scores of motorists with unpaid tickets from the city's defunct red-light camera program. The city Police Commission voted this week to end its contract with the company that operated L.A.'s cameras until they were shut off last summer. And authorities are now planning to reassign a small group of officers who regularly appeared in court to testify in contested photo enforcement cases. With the cancellation of the contract, officers will no longer have easy access to the photo and video evidence that courts require.

WASHINGTON -- Ready for another debt-ceiling standoff in Congress? House Speaker John A. Boehner said Tuesday he will insist on spending cuts in exchange for a vote in Congress to raise the nation's debt limit, forewarning a year-end showdown that could resemble the standoff that resulted in a gridlocked Congress and the nation's first ever credit rating downgrade. “We shouldn't dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It's an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction,” Boehner is expected to say Tuesday afternoon in remarks released by his office ahead of his talk at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's 2012 Fiscal Summit in Washington.

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Bob Brickman spent months fighting a ticket he got last fall from a red-light traffic camera at Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards in West Los Angeles. The 61-year-old from Playa Vista eventually decided to give up the fight and fork over the $476 fine. Now he's regretting paying every penny. City officials this week spotlighted a surprising revelation involving red-light camera tickets: Authorities cannot force violators who simply don't respond to pay them. For a variety of reasons, including the way the law was written, Los Angeles officials say the fines for ticketed motorists are essentially "voluntary" and there are virtually no tangible consequences for those who refuse to pay. The disclosure comes as the city is considering whether to drop the controversial photo enforcement program, with the City Council scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's raised its corporate credit rating on General Motors Co by two notches Thursday, saying the automaker's new labor contract would allow for continued profitability and cash generation in North America. The ratings service revised upward its credit rating on GM to BB+ from BB- and also raised its rating outlook to "stable" from "positive. " The upgrade comes a day after the United Auto Workers union ratified a new four-year labor contract with GM, the first such deal for the top U.S. automaker since its 2009 bankruptcy.

The decision by credit rating firm Standard & Poor's late Friday to cut the United States' rating to AA+ from AAA has stoked fears of more turmoil in financial markets, which already are on edge over the weakening global economy. Here's a look at what S&P's move means, and the potential effects on interest rates and across the markets. What does the new rating say about America's creditworthiness? It's really a subtle shift. S&P says a country rated AA has "a very strong capacity to meet its financial commitments.

Ford Motor Co. is knocking on the door of an investment-grade corporate credit rating, which would help slice the automaker's borrowing costs. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services raised its corporate credit rating on Ford Motor Co. and Ford Motor Credit Co., the automaker's lending arm, to BB+ from BB-. That puts the company just one notch below an investment-grade rating, which is an important measure of corporate health and would reduce the automaker's...

Standard & Poor's is set to downgrade the credit ratings of France and other Eurozone countries, France's finance minister confirmed Friday. France, which is Europe's second-largest economy behind Germany, will be lowered one notch to AA-plus from its previous stellar AAA rating. France will then have the same credit rating as the U.S., which was downgraded by S&P in August . Standard & Poor's plan, announced late Friday afternoon on French television by the nation's finance minister, Francois Baroin, was somewhat expected since S&P warned in December that it might cut the ratings.

The ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned on Tuesday that it could downgrade California's financial outlook if lawmakers don't pass a credible budget plan this year. A final budget is due June 15, and lawmakers' task has become increasingly difficult as the state's deficit has swelled to nearly $16 billion. "We could change the outlook to negative or lower the rating if we believe the state's credit quality weakens through the budget process," said a report from Standard & Poor's.

WASHINGTON — Without the unprecedented stimulus actions by the federal government triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, the Great Recession might still be going on, according to a study by Fitch Ratings. Those incentives, however, came with a price: accelerated budget deficits and rock-bottom interest rates that hurt savers, according to the credit rating company. Still, the $700-billion bailout fund, the $831-billion stimulus package and the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rates, among other federal efforts, continue to spur the nation's economy, the study released Wednesday concludes.

PARIS - It was billed as a political duel to the death. In the right corner, Nicolas Sarkozy, incumbent president seeking reelection but trailing badly in opinion polls. In the left, Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, favored to winFrance's presidential runoff Sunday but facing an aggressive rival with nothing to lose. The pair's only live television debate, it had been described by Sarkozy as "the moment of truth. " And, as possibly his last chance to turn his fortunes around, Sarkozy had vowed to "explode" his rival.

Fitch Ratings likes what it currently sees in Ford Motor Co., upgrading the automaker's credit rating Tuesday to investment grade from its long-held junk status. Determining the Dearborn, Mich., giant to now have “sufficient financial flexibility,” the ratings agency boosted Ford's rating to BBB-minus from BB-plus. Fitch said it “believes that the work that has been accomplished has put the company in a solid position to withstand the significant cyclical and secular pressures faced by the global auto industry.” Ford, now the second-largest automaker in the U.S., maneuvered itself out of a near-collapse in 2006.

California should experience only modest economic growth this year and next, adding nearly a half million new jobs and driving the unemployment rate down to just above 10%, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. said in an annual forecast. Recovery from the deep recession of 2007-2009 is expected to be at “a painfully slow pace” and “it will take years for the county to return to the four million nonfarm job threshhold that marked most of the last decade,” said the report released Wednesday.

Reporting from Sacramento -- After years of economic pain and deep budget cuts, Gov. Jerry Brown declared California to be "on the mend," saying the state is emerging from financial turmoil and proclaiming his dedication to a string of ambitious public projects. Delivering his annual State of the State speech to a joint session of the Legislature on Wednesday, Brown acknowledged more spending reductions to come, saying they are needed to complete the "unfinished business" of closing a $9.2-billion budget gap. But the reference to austerity was a passing mention in a 20-minute address dominated by the sunny optimism that characterized the state during Brown's first governorship, more than three decades ago. "California has problems," the governor said, "but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

Regarding the "pain" Leonard Klady felt when the Samuel Goldwyn Co. dared to appropriate exactly eight words from a review he'd written of their film "Ping Pong" and used them as part of their advertising promotion, I sympathize with him ("Rolling the Credits--and Quotes," Sept. 6). Now try to imagine the pain felt by countless screenwriters over the years when an entire 120 pages of their words go uncredited in a movie review--a few of which, ironically, Klady himself may have been guilty of writing.

Los Angeles energy consultant Frederick H. Pickel was nominated Tuesday as the first ratepayer advocate to oversee proposed customer rate hikes at the city's Department of Water and Power. In a letter obtained by The Times, sent hours before a search panel was scheduled to announce its choice for the voter-created position, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa informed Pickel that city officials must "move quickly" on proposed increases. "Already the credit agencies have spoken about the department's need for increased revenue," Villaraigosa said in his letter.